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To kill a mockingbird describing justice
The kill a mockingbird unfairness
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Could you imagine spending over twenty years in prison over something you never did? The Scottsboro trial was a series of rape cases that lasted over twenty years between nine innocent black men - Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Willie Roberson, Andrew Wright, Ozie Powell, Eugene Williams, Charley Weems, and Roy Wright – and two white women – Ruby Bates and Victoria Price-. The Scottsboro Trials evolved into one of the most unfair cases in U.S. History. The trials began on March 25.
The case was against the nine 'Scottsboro Boys'. The Scottsboro boys consisted of Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Willie Roberson, Andrew Wright, Ozie Powell, Eugene Williams, Charley Weems, and Roy Wright. The victims of the case were Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. Ruby Bates went missing halfway through the trials, leaving Victoria to make the cases herself. Whenever in court, the boys were represented by Stephen Roddy and Milo Moody – two, white attorneys. Stephen Roddy was a real estate attorney from Chattanooga, who was ill to take the case and was once drunk in a different court case. Milo Moody was an elderly local resident who had not tried a case in many years. Therefore, both representatives were incompetent to serve. They later received new representation, more concomitant to serve.
The nine boys were riding a train to Memphis, Tennesse. A lot of the riders were looking for work. Whenever the train passed the Alabama entrance, a fight erupted between black and white groups. At one point, a man stepped on the hand of Haywood Patterson who was hanging on the car's side. After this happened, the African Americans threw all but one white teen off the train. The men who were thrown off the train, ran to railroad personnel saying they were a...
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...o how the Scottsboro Trial impacted the U.S, The Scottsboro Trials further advanced the Civil Rights movement. Furthermore, it had people looking more at the Amendment that is the right to a fair trial. The trials also made people more aware of how to treat people. The 'Scottsboro Boys' defiantly weren't treated fairly by the jury or anyone else. (Phillip Rarls. “Before Ala. Pardons Scottsboro Boys, lots of work to be done Before Ala. Parsons Scottsboro boys, lots of work to be done.”) Like in To Kill a Mockingbird, the court was attacking people who were innocent. That is why the Scottsboro Trials were one of the most unjust cases in U.S. History. Because of their skin color, the nine boys were accused of rape. No one would even listen to their side of what happened because of the racism that occurred. (Metchk, Eric W. “Scottsboro trials” The Thirties in America.)
Before jumping into the comparisons, the story of the Scottsboro Trials is needed to know what is being compared.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is one of the most successful works of fiction in American Literature. Although To Kill a Mockingbird is classified as a work of fiction, there is evidence to support the claim that To Kill a Mockingbird was modeled after the Scottsboro Trials of 1931. There are many parallels between the trial of Tom Robinson and the Scottsboro Trials. The Scottsboro Boys were nine, young, African American men who were falsely accused of raping two white women while illegally riding a train in Alabama. Harper Lee was also about six years old when these trials took place. This is the reason why Harper Lee chose to write her novel through the eyes of a six year old. The trials inspired her to write To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper
While segregation of the races between Blacks and Whites, de facto race discrimination, had been widespread across the United States by the 1930s, nine African-American Scottsboro Boys whose names are Ozzie Powell, Eugene Williams, Charlie Weems, Willie Robeson, Olen Montgomery, Roy and Andy Wright, Clarence Norris and Heywood Paterson were accused of raping two young white women named Victoria Price and Ruby Bates in Alabama in 1931. Along with the dominant influences of the Scottsboro cases on American civil rights history, the landmark case has substantial impacts on the U.S. Constitution primarily in that U.S. Supreme Court ascertained a defendant’s right to effective counsel.
On March 25, 1931 nine African American youths were falsely accused and wrongfully imprisoned for the rape of two white girls. Over the next six consecutive years, trials were held to attempt to prove the innocence of these nine young men. The court battles ranged from the U.S Supreme court to the Scottsboro county court with almost every decision the same---guilty. Finally, with the proceedings draining Alabama financially and politically, four of the boys ...
In addition, the jury fails to recognize the disabilities and special circumstances that would prohibit some of the men from being physically able to commit the crime because of their racial prejudice. As the documentary explains, “Two of them are 13 years old at the time the incident took place. One of them was blind. One of them had syphilis and simply couldn’t have had sexual intercourse” (Scottsboro Boys: An American Tragedy). Even as the defense presents these indisputable facts, the jury fails to look past their racial bias of protecting white women to see the disabilities that prove the innocence of the four men. They remain locked away in jail for over six years, until the fourth trial where the court of Alabama recognizes the prejudice-filled verdict and real change occurs, as the new innocent verdict brings justice to the four Scottsboro boys’. The jury reviews the disabilities and acknowledges the undeniable fact that they are not physically capable of rape. As for the other five defendants remaining in custody, the jury cannot look past the color of their skin, even as the defense mentions the abnormality of half of the defendants being guilty and half
The race riots had an impact on the Civil Rights Movement due to the amount of fighting that the African Americans did. It helped the American people realize just how repressed the blacks really were back in the old days. By actually fighting it brought their issues to the TVs and
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Twelve Angry men by Reginald Rose and The Scottsboro Trial are all about unfair trials containing discrimination towards different people and people being prejudice .The peoples action towards the defendants affected them for the rest of their life. Many of the people that came into the court brought in their own social problems and that influenced the verdict.
The Scottsboro Trial and the trial of Tom Robinson are almost identical in the forms of bias shown and the accusers that were persecuted. The bias is obvious and is shown throughout both cases, which took place in the same time period. Common parallels are seen through the time period that both trials have taken place and those who were persecuted and why they were persecuted in the first place. The thought of "All blacks are liars, and all blacks are wrongdoers," was a major part of all of these trails. A white person's word was automatically the truth when it was held up to the credibility of someone who was black.
Freedom has been discussed and debated for a while now and yet no one can completely agree that it exists. Since the Civil, War America has been conditioned to be divided politically. The conflict over the meaning of freedom continues to exist from the civil war, throughout the sixties and in the present. The Civil War was fought over the question of what freedom means in America. The issue was in the open for all to see: slavery. Human slavery was the shameless face of the idea of freedom. The cultural war in the sixties was once more about the question of what freedom is and what it means to Americans. No slaves. Instead, in the sixties and seventies four main issues dominated the struggle for racial equality: opposition to discriminatory immigration controls; the fight against racist attacks; the struggle for equality in the workplace; and, most explosively, the issue of police brutality. For more than two centuries, Americans demanded successive expansions of freedom; progressive freedom. Americans wanted freedom that grants expansions of voting rights, civil rights, education, public health, scientific knowledge and protections from fear.
...cation in the United States, it put the Constitution on the side of equality between races and made the civil rights movement into a innovation. In 1954, a ton of the United States had separated schools by races which was made legal by the Plessy V Ferguson case.
In the state of Alabama, one court case in particular was so controversial that the government was still trying to resolve it in 2013. These nine boys were guilty in the eyes of the south. Although, this time period was known for racism, there were some whites who believed these boys. The Scottsboro Trials were very controversial because these nine boys were convicted with no solid evidence, they were simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong color of skin.
The Scottsboro Boys saga was a travesty at the time and remains an indelible mark on America’s social, cultural and judicial history. Their plight became a symbol of the oppression faced by black Americans in an America where white supremacy reigned as an accepted fact of life. Now something of folkloric proportion, this example of pervading southern prejudice and gross injustice captures a moment in America’s law and order environment. The Scottsboro Boys trials to this day highlight the climate of enduring racism socially, culturally and embedded in the legal system. Equally, the case shows the uneven application of the law and to some extent, a changing law and order environment.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee seems like a complete replica of the lives of people living in a small Southern U.S. town. The themes expressed in this novel are as relevant today as when this novel was written, and also the most significant literary devices used by Lee. The novel brings forward many important themes, such as the importance of education, recognition of inner courage, and the misfortunes of prejudice. This novel was written in the 1930s. This was the period of the “Great Depression” when it was very common to see people without jobs, homes and food. In those days, the rivalry between the whites and the blacks deepened even more due to the competition for the few available jobs. A very famous court case at that time was the Scottsboro trials. These trials were based on the accusation against nine black men for raping two white women. These trials began on March 25, 1931. The Scottsboro trials were very similar to Tom Robinson’s trial. The similarities include the time factor and also the fact that in both cases, white women accused black men.
The Impact of the Dred Scott Case on the United States The Dred Scott Case had a huge impact on the United States as it is today. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments have called it the worst Supreme Court decision ever rendered and was later overturned. The Dred Scott Decision was a key case regarding the issue of slavery; the case started as a slave seeking his rightful freedom and mushroomed into a whole lot more. 65
There were nine Scottsboro boys that initially were arrested and they all were given the death penalty. The Scottsboro trials became so public that the city could not lynch the men because the whole United States was focused on the trials happening in Alabama. After a fourth retrial was granted in about 1937, four of the Scottsboro boys were released (Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Eugene Williams, and Roy Wright). In the early